


Sokovia's Children

by HerenorThereNearnorFar



Series: My Friends Are My Estate [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Children, Gen, Robots, au-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerenorThereNearnorFar/pseuds/HerenorThereNearnorFar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running a daycare, not a good backup plan for them if killing the Avengers didn't work out. There's a kid in Castle Hydra and twins and Ultron are, respectively, better and so much worse than you would have expected at handling screaming children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sokovia's Children

**Author's Note:**

> This took longer than I expected to write, mostly because I drafted multiple endings. This one seemed the least awkward. Mostly supposed to be cute, though I'm not sure how much that comes across. This is not compliant with the other stories I've written in this series because it just feels out of joint with Foil Skin and Travelling Considerations, but it shares the same theme so I stuck it in anyways. But if you want to consider them together, that's fine too. It takes place very shortly after Ultron picks up Wanda and Pietro, literally within hours. Thank you so much to everyone who reads or reviews!

You expected a lot of things in abandoned medieval castles being used by mad scientists. Ultron was young but he wasn't stupid. He had pretty much been on board with the beakers and slightly creepy devices and dissected aliens. Those things were useful. A grade schooler? Significantly less so.

The brat had been in one of the middle floors that he hadn't cleared yet, but he had run enough scans on the building for lurking SHIELD officers (It had taken him five minutes after coming to life to figure out who and where the inevitable remnants of the organization were and he wasn't thrilled by the idea of having to deal with their petty squabbles.) when he first woke up to know that she was a recent arrival. The kid was frozen, kneeling in front of a cabinet of medical supplies in one of the lesser labs. Big blue eyes stared at him and a lower lip was wobbling threateningly. If there was crying...

The kid ended up settling for a shrill scream after a few seconds of consideration. In hindsight he might have actually preferred crying. He needed to develop a mute button for his auditory systems.

"Stop that!" he said in what was supposed to be a firm and authoritative tone as he considered how to best get rid of the girl. Murder was maybe not ideal, Ultron had some vague consciousness of the fact that killing kids in cold blood was a bad idea. It was… what was the word? Wasteful- no higher goal involved- and cruel. It was also arguably unnecessary but as the screaming changed pitch into an even higher wail and he failed to come up with any alternate solutions it began to look like a more appealing option.

Why did children need to make so much sound anyways? There was no one near enough to help her, it was just making him angry and distracted. From an evolutionary perspective it made very little sense.

As if to prove him wrong, Pietro Maximoff appeared in the doorway and a whole host of options disappeared. The Maximoffs were highly unlikely to approve of anything that would hurt a child. They were hurt children themselves, it made sense. If Ultron had been able to do anything drastic in the first place (And he wasn't sure he could, there were pieces in him that he didn't quite understand yet and one of them had some sympathy for utmost terror.) it certainly wasn't happening now. Pietro was gone almost as soon as he arrived, and then he was back again, with Wanda who took in the scene with those drowning eyes.

Ultron against the far wall. The little kid, finally quieting. The detritus of a raided laboratory. There were blood stains on the floor.

Wanda stepped forward to the sound of glass crunching beneath her feet and both Ultron and the girl turned to look at her. Very carefully, Wanda crouched in front of the kid and murmured something.

It took Ultron a few nano-seconds to run it through translation and he needed to work on that. Functioning in English first was inefficient and slightly unfair to other language speakers. It was called world peace after all, Ultron really couldn't afford to be bigoted.

But, back to the point, what she had said was, _Hello, my name is Wanda. What's yours?_

"Milena" the girl whispered, and really, she chose now to be quiet as a mouse. Kids. "Why is there a man made of silver?"

He liked the silver part and took a step closer. Without looking Wanda held up a hand to hold him back, which was both unfair and uncanny. But not wanting to alienate his new allies or start a remix of the screaming session he stayed put.

"He is just a person made out of metal." Wanda shrugged, as she hoped to convince the kid by sheer force of will that it was no big deal. The really impressive thing was that is was working. She continued, "And that is my brother Pietro over there. Milena is a pretty name, can I call you Mila?"

The girl nodded slowly. "That's what my mama calls me." Ultron couldn't actually see the color of Wanda's eyes in between the lighting and his current vision, but he would put money on a tinge of red in there, based on how unsurprised she seemed by that revelation.

Pietro moved more slowly than Ultron had ever seen him before, although his sample size consisted of the last few hours and probably wouldn't have held up under scientific scrutiny. "Nice to meet you, Mila." he said easily, with a smile that screamed practiced charm.

"Why is that man made out of metal?" the girl asked again, and you had to give her points for persistence. Ultron held his tongue about the man thing, because he did have some restraint, and let the twins handle this. They seemed to know how to deal with children and he... really did not. In his defense he was technically a only a few days old and no one expected newborns to run daycares.

"He just is." Pietro said dismissively.

"Is he a monster?" the girl pried, voice beginning to tremble.

Wanda shook her head. "No, I promise. He is a friend."

There was absolutely not a warm feeling growing in Ultron's power source. That would have been ridiculous and possibly a sign of serious malfunction. He did feel slightly smug though.

Pietro knelt next to his sister and rested his hand on his knees. "Can we ask why you are here, Mila?"

The kid crossed her arms and gave Ultron another distrustful look. 'Face That Doesn't Scare Tiny Humans' went on his list of goals. Not very high up, but this was exhausting and he didn't want to do it again. She spoke quietly. "Everyone said the government came in because bad men were here, but I thought they might have left something I could take. And the police can't do anything so I thought I could sneak in."

Pietro snorted which earned him a glare from Wanda, who was herself hiding a smile. Still, Wanda kept enough of a straight face to say. "Mila, that wasn't very smart. This wasn't just the police, it was NATO and Tony Stark."

Mila, weird name, Ultron couldn't help but think, but so few human names made sense, paled. "Stark?" she said in the tones one might use for a boogeyman and suddenly Ultron like her a lot better.

"Stark." Wanda confirmed. "And these ruins are dangerous. You could have been hurt."

"I had to!" the girl yelled as if letting out a pent up reserve of hysteria. "We don't have enough money and Mama won't let us help and my brothers are getting sick again! I just wanted to help, find something that the old man at the scrap shop would buy." she sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand in a way that was somehow more unhygienic than not wiping it, repeating stubbornly, "I just wanted to help."

Pietro offered the kid his sleeve and there was sharp contrast between this still, kind boy and the white hot anger Ultron had seen just a few hours ago in the basement. "I know you did." he said. "But you should not get hurt, otherwise your Mama would have more to worry about. I know it is bad, but it is for the grownups to fix, like me and Wanda and-" Pietro jerked his head towards Ultron, "Him. The castle is too much. Maybe see if you could sell flowers, for luck. That would help your mama too, wouldn't it?"

"Flowers." Wanda agreed. "You will be the luckiest flower seller in Sokovia." It sounded like a benediction, there was a weight to the words. It would be, now that Wanda Maximoff had said it. He thought if the twins were born in different times, Wanda would have been an excellent high priestess. Orders suited her, even when those orders were more to reality than to little Mila.

Mila blew her nose and nodded. "But what are you doing up here?"

"Work." Ultron said and Wanda couldn't shush him this time. He could do this, children, like people but smaller, how hard could it be. He took a step forward. and copied the twins pose, one knee on the floor, the other leg bent up, posture easy and relaxed. It was harder with his height but he could do it.

To his delight the kid didn't scream, just blinked and asked, "What work? Not police, you're too nice to be police. You're definitely too nice to be Stark or NATO." She pronounced it like one word, _nah-toh_.

Ultron smiled, slowly, like Wanda and Pietro, and spoke softly, like Wanda and Pietro. "No, Mila, were not. You don't like Tony Stark?" The kid bobbed her head in agreement. "Well," Ultron said, still trying to copy the twins who were watching him carefully. "We're going to kill him."

Mila recoiled. "Really?" Was that fear in her voice or joy? It was so hard to tell, Ultron could never tell.

He leaned forward trying to reassure her. "Yes, big scary Tony Stark, gone. And the other Avengers."

The girl scrambled back, "No, no. Mama says you're not allowed to kill people and I like Black Widow, she's like me." Wanda was next to the girl now, cradling her as she curled in on herself and Pietro was standing at the ready. Ultron wasn't sure where this had all gone wrong. Mila thrashed and yelled, "You said he wasn't a monster, please don't kill me, Mama!" Pietro helped Wanda subdue her but the girl was panicking, babbling about never talking to strangers and nobody likes Tony Stark but they're heroes and you shouldn't kill heroes. Ultron started to rethink his analysis of her intelligence. The killing of heroes was practically a societal demand, after all. But she was young, and idealism was a flaw of youth. Ultron watched as the twins fought with the girl- they had waved away his help- until Wanda finally pressed a desperate kiss to the child's forehead and she stopped fighting.

"What was that?" Pietro whispered.

And Wanda whispered back, "I don't know, I think I sent her to sleep, I tried to. But she'll probably have nightmares." Then they looked at each other for a moment and then Pietro was gone again, leaving Wanda with the girl in her lap.

"I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?" Ultron tried and Wanda looked at him.

"No. Ultron." Her words seemed disjointed as if she couldn't believe what she was saying and needed to consider each one. "It's just that most children react poorly to people telling them about planned murders, especially of superheroes. She did not know, and she did not need to know. She's young, she wasn't alive during the bombings, Tony Stark would have been a story told to scare children for her. She does not hate. She didn't need to know all that."

"Oh." Ultron said and the kid looked a lot different unconscious. She was more clearly underfed, for one thing and her size seemed more noticeable. Small heads, small brains, careful handling. It was an equation that made sense to him. He noticed one more thing; at some point in her struggling she had slashed open her palm with glass. Ultron crouched and pointed it out and the blood was sticky on the metal of his skin, creeping into the crevices in his hands and painting them with red.

Wanda nodded. "Pietro should be back with a blanket and some medical supplies soon. We'll leave her near the outskirts of the city. Hopefully she will wake up and think it was a nightmare." She glanced at the little face, grimacing and the tense line of the little shoulders and added, mostly to herself. "She's probably having nightmares now. I am not very versatile." The confession came easily, as if they were old friends.

"You're powerful." Ultron corrected. He had work back in the lab and this little girl was already taking up too much of his time. Still, he found himself moving to the other end of the lab where he had seen a wallet under a table, left by some Hydra flunky and then not accurately cleared by NATO. He picked it up with two bloody fingers and dropped it back in Wanda's lap, on top of the child. "There should be something in there for her."

Wanda looked at him and Ultron thought he saw something there he hadn't before. Respect, maybe.

Pietro was back in the room with an armful of blankets before he could ask and the twins bandaged the girl's hand and wrapped her up with blankets, in an easy way that implied that they'd done it before, then Pietro hefted her up slightly more awkwardly, but with enough expertise that he seemed to have some experience with picking up prone bodies. Ultron stepped in again and tilted his head to take in the whole scene, the twins drawn close together as if tied at the waist and the little figure Pietro was carrying gingerly and how Wanda seemed to be trying to shield it with her body. They didn't have very much faith in his intentions, or maybe they were just careful souls when it came to other orphans. Probably both.

He held his arms loose at his side, made his shoulders look a little smaller, looked them in the eyes. "We should all go together." he offered soothingly. "It would be safer."

Wanda studied him for an instant, Pietro looked to the side and bit his lip, and neither of them objected.

It was a long walk down from the castle to the woods, one full of dark stairwells and narrow steps built for smaller men. Wanda was the only one who didn't have to duck under multiple lintels. Pietro struggled a little, with his burden, mostly trying to keep the girl's head from bumping into walls. Wanda therefore took the lead, turning the wallet in her hands and whispering warnings of broken glass and sudden steps. That left Ultron to take up the rear, oddly helpless. Bringing lost infants home was not his place, though perhaps there was something he could do. As they finally made it into the melting snow and tall tree he went on a little database search, using what little information he had to build a fortress of facts, bits of information building on one another.

Then he quietly directed the twins to a little access road where she'd be found by soon enough, but not too soon

"It's cold." Wanda offered as Pietro carefully leaned little Milena against a tree. Both Maximoffs looked thoughtful and then Wanda wrapped a scarf around the child's head, Pietro made sure she could breath, Wanda tucked a roll of money into her pocket. That was really all that could have been done. Even after that they both looked reluctant to go.

There was silence as they lingered, the twins' breath puffing in steamy little clouds, the crackle of ice under feet. The moonlight gave the scene a ghastly air, and from the outside it looked terrible, the metal monster and the dark eyed witch and the tall young man who held himself like people hold knives. But then again people were not very bright, they'd see anything if it meant they could be shocked.

Ultron would have easily admitted he wasn't sure what to make of it, a midnight gathering in the woods that should have dissolved long minutes ago and the uneasy air like a single word would break everything.

he wasn't good at being quiet, he was so close to speaking when the car headlights appeared in the distance, heading towards them, and Wanda knelt hastily and pressed another quick peck to the girl's forehead. There was a hitch in Milena Ćirković's breathing. The twins were together again in an instant and Pietro gave him a look and said, "Catch you at the castle." before bolting.

Ultron himself backed away quickly as the car approached, not wanting the sharp light of the headlights to catch and gleam on shiny metal.

But from his place in the trees he could still see, and he didn't leave as the sweep of golden brightness and Wanda's... whatever magic psychic thingy, did their work. The car slowed, Milena stumbled to her feet. There were questions, and confusion, and the little family in the car didn't seem to suspicious of Mila's hazy claims that she had been trying to get up to the fortress but must have gotten lost. Sokovia it appeared, knew how to take care of some of its children. The police were called, and after some questioning finally agreed to take the girl home. And that was it, that's the show, folks, curtain falls.

Ultron snorted. It wasn't a good show, more of a tangent, a strange little escapade in between what really mattered.

As the girl stumbled to the police car she looked back and almost looked at him. Close enough that it might have convinced a human that she had spotted him. He knew better of course, noted the unfocused look to her eyes (Miss Maximoff really did a number on people even when she didn't mean to.) and how her gaze skipped right over him. Still, it would have been a good flight of fancy.

The world was ending and the strong would survive. Some bit of him hoped that the child being led away by dispassionate hands was strong. He certainly thought so, and that was close enough.

The fortress, his evil lair as it were, was not too far away and he had time to make plans. He had labs to raid, preparations to make. He'd need to see what the Maximoffs would and could do. Time was a ticking. They had heroes to kill. 

 

 

For Mila the next few days were trying. The police were feeling competent and there was an actual investigation, apparently they frowned on parents whose daughters wandered away in the middle of the night. Her mother, for her part, was both furious and desperately relieved, which meant lots of hugs and extra chores. And her head was still pounding. She'd had the worst nightmares that day, of being lost and alone in a dark hollow place full of broken things and monsters. Her family had hated her, she hadn't been able to help anyone, and there had been terrible things in the dark all silver and red.

The real terrible things came, the next morning, and she did not scream. 


End file.
